Avid to support Intel-based Macs

August 21, 2006

Avid Technology has announced plans to expand its video and audio content creation products to support the latest Intel-based Apple Macintosh systems.

Avid said its video division expected to deliver new versions of Xpress Pro and Media Composer systems for all Intel-based Macs by December. Avid's audio division, Digidesign, expects to release a compatible update to its Pro Tools HD 7.2 software in September.

Full qualification for the existing Intel-based Mac versions of Pro Tools LE and Pro Tools M-Powered on the new Mac Pro workstation is also expected in December, although preliminary testing indicates that both applications will run without problems, Avid said.

In addition, Digidesign's business unit, M-Audio, expects to qualify various hardware interfaces for the Mac Pro workstation by December. A wide range of Digidesign and M-Audio systems are already compatible with the Intel-based computers that Apple released earlier this year.

While continuing development on Intel-based Mac systems, Avid's video and audio businesses plans to maintain backward compatibility with PowerPC-based Mac systems. Avid and its businesses also expect to support future versions of the Mac OS, including the forthcoming Leopard OS announced earlier this month.